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H. L. FRONTERHOUSE |
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| H.L. Fronterhouse
Interview #4432 Life of a Pioneer Man, told by H.L. Fronterhouse, Sulphur, Oklahoma, Route #1. My father was John Fronterhouse, a farmer, born in Nebraska. (Date unknown) Mother was Lucinda Grimes Fronterhouse, born in Missouri. (Date Unknown) My parents came to the Indian Territory about 1868 in an ox wagon. They were about a month on their trip. There were seven children in our family. I was born April 20, 1871, at Atoka in the Choctaw Nation, in a two room log house with no windows and one door to each room. We used water from a spring and burned wood for fuel. Mother cooked on the fireplace in a Dutch oven and skillet and lid. She dried fruit and canned berries in half-gallon tin cans. These cans were made like syrup buckets. When the lid was pressed into place, it was sealed with sealing wax. There was a tiny hole in the center of the lid to allow the air and steam to escape. When it was all out, a drop of sealing wax was put over the hole and this sealed the can airtight. We made our own syrup in a home made mill made of sycamore blocks. The juice was pressed out of the cane between bois de arc rollers into a hewed trough and dripped into a tub. We cooked it in wash pots and made about ten gallons per day. When I was twelve years old a man who was moving to Texas gave mother a cook stove. This was the first one I had ever seen. I went after it in the ox wagon. We were certainly proud of that. It was the only one in the neighborhood. I didn't go to school at all. The tuition was ten cents per day and my parents didn't think an education was essential, so they kept me at home to help with the farm work. There were no doctors. If we got sick, mother went out and hunted a weed called Indian Pie Weed, dug the roots and boiled them. This was our medicine. I was fourteen years old before I saw a doctor. We went to mill at Atoka. This was a cotton gin and grist mill having rock burrs and was pulled by steam. We got mail at Atoka. Father paid a cattle permit of five dollars per year for grazing. This was collected by an Indian named Folsom. The Indians and whites used to have big 'fish frys', lasting for three or four days. We caught the fish in a drag net, and the women would fry them in skillets. Everybody had plenty of lard as hogs were plentiful, and beef was one of our main dishes. I attended Circuit Court of the Choctaws at Boggy Creek Forks, east of Atoka, as a witness in a cattle stealing trial. A friend and I saw a full-blood driving a cow away from a herd, and when we returned he had killed and skinned her. He was convicted. His punishment was three hundred fifty stripes with a hickory switch. The sheriff of Atoka County tied him to a whipping post by his feet and hands and whipped him across the back. Every time he struck him it brought blood. I also attended an Indian execution at the District Court House east of Atoka. This Indian boy had been tried and found guilty of murder. He was turned loose and told to return to the Court House on a certain date. The Indians never broke their word. They thought they would never attain the happy hunting ground if they failed to keep a promise. So, on this day of execution, he came riding up on his pony. His sister combed his hair. They stood him in his coffin with his toes against the foot of it. His mother stood on his left and his father on his right. A cross was made over his heart and the sheriff fired. His parents laid him back in the coffin, and he died. I can remember when there was only a small log store in Durant owned by Dickerson Durant, an Indian, for whom Durant was named. He had only snuff, tobacco, and coffee in this store. I was married in 1890 to Amanda York. We bought the first United States marriage license issued at Atoka under the United States law. We have seven children. I have lived in Murray County for seven years. Transcribed by Brenda Choate & Dennis Muncrief, December, 2000.
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